BMW, Intel and Mobileye to deploy 40 autonomous test cars on road this year

From the world’s first 5G modem to smart hairbrush, CES 2017 has already set tech world on fire with a small peep into future of technology. Now, bringing one of the most anticipated announcements from the show- a fleet of autonomous vehicles will hit the U.S. and European roads in 2017 courtesy a partnership between BMW, Intel and Israeli tech company Mobileye.

Intel made the announcement in a blog post. The trio also revealed that they have developed a “scalable architecture” with the aim of sharing it with other carmakers and brands.

“Highly autonomous cars and everything they connect to will require powerful and reliable electronic brains to make them smart enough to navigate traffic and avoid accidents,” Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said. “This partnership between BMW Group, Intel and Mobileye will help us to quickly deliver on our vision to reinvent the driving experience. We bring a broad set of in-vehicle and cloud computing, connectivity, safety and security, and machine-learning assets to this collaboration enabling a truly end-to-end solution.”

Most probably the 40 vehicles will be deployed in different sites as BMW said the test will occur “globally under real traffic conditions.”

When the initial announcement was made in July 2016, the trio said the self-driving cars will be put into full production by 2021. However, its competitors like Google and Tesla are much ahead in developing their own self-driving systems. Google has already crossed 2 million self-driving miles on public roads, while Tesla Motors Inc., has reached 1.3 billion miles with driverless car systems.